The Black Dress (16 page)

St Joseph’s church, named by Father Woods, the parish priest, was a lovely little stone building, complete with belfry. It had been consecrated only a couple of years before and still had that lovely new smell.

Aunt Margaret spread a starched white cloth over the altar. I added two shining brass candlesticks. I felt like singing as I worked, but that wouldn’t have been respectful. So I prayed instead, three decades of the rosary as we set out all our chairs and the stools from the men’s hut. The church had raised enough money for pews but they were still being made.

There were so few priests out here. Father Woods had a parish of 26 000 square miles. That was not unusual in this new land where settlements were so few and far, far between. In his entire parish, there were only three small towns, hundreds of miles apart, with scattered homesteads and shepherds’ huts, miners’ camps and settlers’ shanties in between.

No wonder it took him so long to make his rounds.

It had been five weeks since I had taken Holy Communion. The longest I had ever gone, I think, since my first Blessed Eucharist. I was looking forward to the familiar litany of the Mass the next morning. It would be like it had been when Father Geoghegan, who was now Bishop of Adelaide, came to us out at Darebin Creek.

But it was not like that.

This priest was nothing like Father Geoghegan. He was young, thin and had haunting dark eyes and an astoundingly bushy dark beard. There was no friendly Irish accent—Father Woods was English by birth and education. But that voice! Father Geoghegan had been a full-voiced sweet baritone. Father Woods—I scarcely know what his voice was like in terms of note or musicality. But I know that from his first
In nomine Patrie
I could not look away from the altar, so great was his presence.

This was a priest who lived the truth of the Blessed Sacrament with each celebration of it. That was clear. Christ was on the altar and he was privileged to bring Him into our presence. Every gesture, every word proclaimed it.

Then his sermon. He spoke simply, quietly at first. He spoke of the pastoral letter he had received from Bishop Geoghegan, urging him and all the priests to set up schools for Catholic children. He spoke of his last trip around the parish. Of the children he saw, growing up in far-flung places with no chance of education or enlightenment. He spoke of big lads of ten and 11 who did not know their Catechism, who had never made their confession, who did not know the difference between God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. Illiterate, innumerate, ignorant—but worse than all of these, totally unaware of God’s goodness and Christ’s grace.

‘Suffer the little children to come unto me,’ Father thundered, and repeated it, softly. ‘Suffer the little children to come unto me. Yet how can these children of the bush come to Christ when they hear his name only as a curse? I pray for Divine guidance. I pray for instruction in what I must do to prevent these precious little ones growing up in ignorance of the Good News. And so must you. Each and every one of you. Pray! Pray! And do what you can to dispel the darkness of ignorance.’

As he spoke, his eyes searched the congregation, pinning each one of us in turn. When his eyes met mine, and he repeated the bishop’s words, ‘Do what you can,’ I felt the great calm and joy come over me which I know as the unmistakable sign of God’s presence. ‘Do what you can.’ This was God’s message to me. I was sure of it.

I am glad it is the middle of the night, and that the dark hides the tears in my eyes. More than forty years later, that memory still wrings my heart. Uplifting, terrifying, exalting, it set me shaking. A good friend of mine, a very devout Jewish woman, once told me that she had felt like that the first time she realised she was pregnant. A sense of destiny coupled with enormous responsibility, but also a sense of being directly touched by God, of being given a gift straight from His hands.

Why am I going over this memory? There is no anger or impatience here to understand and repent. Yet I feel that I must examine this time, too. Perhaps it’s because Father Woods, like my papa, proved not to be so capable when put to the test; and yet I feel no resentment towards him at all. Without him, would I have ever been more than a governess? Sometimes I wonder. Sometimes I think it is people like Father Woods who are needed to start entirely new things. People who don’t think exactly like other people, who are not the slightest bit concerned with the ordinary, whose eyes are fixed on what lies beyond.

Father Woods was far holier than I could ever be—and far less worldly as a result! My meeting with him changed not only my life, but the lives of hundreds, thousands, of others—nuns, students, priests, even bishops. I was so fortunate to have known him.

‘Father, this is my niece Mary MacKillop, who has come to be governess to our wild tribe.’

I curtsied and murmured good morning. I found it hard to speak. I so wanted to talk to Father Woods about everything—the children who needed education, my vocation, my situation—and to hear his guidance. But how could I start? It seemed presumptuous of me to announce, ‘God has called me to do your work’, but I felt more with every passing moment, that this was the truth. So I was tongue-tied. A new experience for me!

Father himself gave me the opening. ‘Miss MacKillop. Do you teach your charges the Catechism as well as the three Rs?’

‘Of course, Father.’

‘Of course!’ the King cut in. ‘Not only our lot, but all the children on the station. Mary gives up her free time to teach the men’s children.’

‘That’s a worthy work,’ Father Woods said. He looked at me approvingly. ‘I wish there were a hundred like you in South Australia, Miss MacKillop. I could save thousands of souls.’

I raised my eyes to his. Perhaps he could see how his words had moved me, because he said, ‘We should talk more of this.’

‘Over lunch,’ Aunt Margaret said immediately. ‘You’ll be coming to us as usual, Father?’

Father Woods smiled. His face, which had been sombre and intense, came alive—just as intense, but now full of joy. I felt my own spirits lift in response.

‘Would I miss a Penola Station luncheon, Mrs Cameron?

I’m not so foolish. I have a few matters to attend to here, and I’ll be over.’

Of course we did not talk over lunch itself—there were too many people and too many other conversations for serious discussion. But afterwards I asked to see Father alone. He assumed I wished to make my confession, and indeed I did, but I wanted even more to explain my interest in his sermon.

We walked down by the lagoon.

It was hard, at first, to speak.

‘I—Well, Father, I—For a long time, now, you see, I have felt ... I have
known
that God has called me to the religious life.’

I expected him to question me, to interrogate me to make sure my vocation was real. Other priests had in the past. At best, I expected a grave nod and a, ‘What makes you think so, my child?’

Instead, he grasped my hand and shook it warmly. ‘Oh, congratulations, Miss MacKillop. How wonderful for you!’

I had to blink back tears. It
was
wonderful, but he was the first person to think so.

After that I could go on with confidence. Father Woods was so easy to talk to! He listened as though my thoughts were the most important thing to him in the world. I felt much older than 18 years—and much wiser, more responsible.

I explained my family duties.

‘So you see, Father, I am not in a position to enter a religious life.’

‘No, no, I see that. And yet, my child, you must be careful that the things of this world do not interfere for too long. Remember the young man who wanted to follow Christ? He could not even return to his family to say goodbye.’

How often had I read that story?

‘But my family would starve without me, Father. I can’t—’

‘No, you must do your duty. But at the same time, you must search for ways to do your greater duty at the first opportunity.’

He fell silent, obviously wrapped in thought. That I could not continue, although I longed to tell him that I thought God had sent me to Penola in order to hear his sermon and so find my life’s work.

‘Miss MacKillop,’ he said finally, ‘you may think me precipitous, but I
believe
that God has sent you here for a purpose.’

I held my breath.
Does he see the same shape to God’s will that I do?

‘I believe that God sent you here to begin the great work of educating the ignorant youth of Australia.’

Perhaps he only means my work as a governess.

‘I have a vision,’ he went on eagerly as I remained silent. ‘An order of nuns who go out into their communities, who are not enclosed within stone walls. An order of nuns who will educate the poor, who tend to the needy, who dedicate themselves to poverty—the same poverty as those they help. I have seen such nuns, in France. Inspiring women! They teach the poor, not the rich. They nurse the indigent, not those who can afford hospitals. And they do it from small congregations—in some, no more than six sisters. This is what we need, and God has sent you here to do it!’

‘You think I should go to France to become one of these nuns and then return to start a convent in Australia?’ It was an astonishing thought.

‘No, no,’ he said impatiently. ‘We must begin our own order right here. In Penola, if necessary.’

I could feel my old patterns of thought break apart, leaving huge vistas where there had been walls hemming me in. I felt as I used to feel, riding my pony helter-skelter through the bush at Darebin Creek. The blood rushed to my cheeks.

‘I couldn’t—’ but even as I said it, I knew I could.

Father Woods could see it in my face. He was just as flushed, just as excited. ‘You know you can, Miss MacKillop. You
know
this is what God wants of you.’

And indeed I did.

I still don’t know why Our Blessed Lord picked me. I made so many mistakes! In the early years it seemed we lurched from crisis to crisis. There never was enough money, not even enough to feed or clothe our sisters properly, and there were conflicts of personality that nearly tore us apart. In those years we took on everyone who came to us claiming they had a vocation.

Later on, I realised that those priests who had gravely interrogated me as to why I thought I had been called had been acting wisely. Not everyone is suited to a religious life and sometimes those who feel most strongly called are the worst suited. One of our early recruits ended her years in a lunatic asylum, poor, sad soul, and the trouble she caused almost ended the Institute before it was properly established.

If I’d been older, wiser, more experienced, perhaps I would have sieved out those girls who were not suited to be nuns, or managed the inevitable conflicts of personality better than I did. I have to smile. If I’d been older, wiser, more experienced, I wouldn’t have had the ... the
gall
to do what I did. Sometimes you need inexperience to begin a new venture, for the experienced baulk at the problems they see clearly lying ahead, while the inexperienced go blithely onwards, unaware of the pitfalls in their path. They may fall, but at least they start the journey.

Well. There is a whirring of wings outside the window as the fruit bats fly over, back to their nesting trees. It will be dawn soon. Forty-eight years of dawns since I discovered my purpose in life. I wonder if I will see another one? I am almost ready, I think, but something is telling me there is more work to do, more memory to live through.

Father Woods had to leave the next day, but he promised to write to me.

It was just as well. I needed time for reflection and prayer. Was I just being carried away by Father Woods’ vision? Was it his enthusiasm, rather than God’s will, that was guiding me?

As I taught the Dawson children the Hail Mary, I thought,
No. This is my work.

Years later, Father wrote to me,
‘Teaching young children, and by a zeal in the cause, you can save more souls in that way than I can as a priest.’
Listening to Gertie Dawson say her first rosary that morning, I understood that already.

One of the fights I had many times with parents was that my insistence that, if Aboriginal children wanted to attend school, they must be allowed on the same basis as the other children. My brother Donald, after he was made a priest, worked in the Northern Territory with Aboriginal people, until his Order moved him for fighting the government to get land made over formally to the tribes for self-governance. Lately, people have assumed that the stand I took on Aboriginal children was at his behest, but they were wrong. It was because of Nancy.

I smelt Nancy before I saw her for the first time. It was a hot summer with little rain and I was often conscious of my cousins’ personal odours—it reminded me of the drought at Darebin Creek. But this was beyond anything I had ever encountered, an odour so striking that my eyes watered. Old fat, dried sweat, and something else, a
female
odour as rank as a possum.

Ann cried out, ‘It’s Stinky Nancy!’ and the others made faces.

Around the corner I saw a dark face peer cautiously. Her hair stood out around her thin cheeks and seemed to move in the breeze. But there was no breeze. I wouldn’t have believed a human head could hold so many lice. The hair seethed with them so that I was reminded of the myth of the snake-haired Gorgon, Medusa.

‘She just wants food, Miss Mary,’ Alex said. ‘If you get some bread from the kitchen she’ll go away.’

‘I am sure she does want food,’ I said. Her little face was painfully thin. ‘Alex, get her some—bread and cheese and some fruit if there is any.’

‘Don’t waste the fruit on her!’ Sarah cried. ‘There’s never enough for us and she’s just one of the blacks.’

Nancy seemed to understand Sarah, for she hung her head and made to disappear. Alex paused at the doorway.

‘Don’t go, Nancy,’ I said. I looked at Sarah seriously. This was perhaps the most important lesson I could teach her. ‘Nancy is our sister, Sarah. “Inasmuch as you do these things for the least of my brethren, you do them for me.” Who said that?’